Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Of all the fish that fall victims to our skill [...] the most interesting [are those] by reason of their size, strength, and gameness, the difficulty of their capture, and the romantic scenery of the districts in which [...] we have to seek them.”
Major John P. Traherne
Quoted in 1889
Inventor of the salmon fly “Black Argus”

Baltimore, Maryland
Fundraising Gala

“Hannibal,” Alana Bloom said, as she sidled up to Hannibal Lecter and linked her arm in his. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

He let dear Alana guide him across the room as he nodded greetings to the other gala attendees as he passed them.

“Friend?” Hannibal said.

“You could call him that,” Alana said.

Alana’s passionate interest in the inner workings of the human mind made her an interesting conversation partner, and her extraordinary looks made him the envy of the entire room. He viewed her as he viewed the reproduction of The Bathers he had hanging in his kitchen: a delectable mix of beauty and intellectual diversion that went well with the décor.

“The hesitation in your voice says he’s not a friend,” Hannibal said. “Current or previous patient whose privacy you’re trying to protect?”

“It would be unethical for me to say,” Alana said. She tucked her chin, like she always did when she was uncomfortable. It was a patient then, likely a former patient if she was willing to acknowledge she knew him in public. “His name is Will Graham. You’ve likely heard of him.”

Hannibal had. Will Graham was diagnosed some years back with a empathy disorder. Too many mirror neurons in his brain. The psychology community had gone crazy over it, but Graham had refused all interviews, all evaluations, and retreated into solitude until eventually the fervor had calmed down. Hannibal was quite sure he couldn’t resist the temptation to fiddle with such a brain.

“You wish to introduce me because you believe I can help him,” Hannibal speculated, “when you feel you yourself could not. You give yourself too little credit, Alana.”

As they walked the length of the room he could see Dr. Sutcliffe and his wife patrolling the tables adjacent the stage. Eager to be center stage? Hannibal thought. Donald Sutcliffe was a distinguished neurologist and an engaging public speaker, but Hannibal was better. Poor Sutcliffe would be relegated to the outskirts of notoriety once again.

“He is a unique one,” Alana said. “And it got too… personal.” Hannibal’s eye caught on a man fussing with the setup of an entrée table.

The man looked like Saint Sebastian himself. Brown curling hair and dark stubble framed a tanned face. He was unapologetically masculine with lean muscle, and the hair was slightly unruly. But there was a hint of fragility in his muddy blue eyes. He was a beauty even Michelangelo could strive but fail to fully capture in marble.

But the tux the man wore was cheap and ill-fitted. The man constantly fidgeted, unused to both the formal clothing and the company. Hannibal knew he would never go with the kitchen décor.

“Hello, Will,” Alana said, and she was talking to the man Hannibal had been eyeing with interest. “May I introduce Dr. Hannibal Lecter? Hannibal, this is Will Graham.”

“Honored to make your acquaintance,” Hannibal said. Not only beautiful then, but with a mind so rare he made the Mona Lisa look commonplace.

Perhaps it was time for a change in his kitchen furnishings. Stain the wood of the appliance wall a dark brown to match Will’s hair. For his eyes, replace the ceramic tile floor with blue marble streaked with veins of brown. Put a mirror on the wall to mimic that unique and precious mind. The painting of The Bathers would have to go, the frivolity of the painting style clashed with Will’s rugged practicalness. Alana would have to go too.

Hannibal smiled his very well practised smile. The one that said I’m interested but not too interested as to be creepy; the kind of smile other people were comfortable with. Will Graham looked distinctly uncomfortable. He didn’t even look at Hannibal, instead averting his gaze.

“Likewise,” Will said. It sounded like a lie. “May I introduce Abigail?”

Abigail—who hovered next to Will like she expected Alana and Hannibal to suddenly turn into lions—had wide, startled eyes and freckles dotted on her face like fawn spots. She looked young enough to still be downing beer at frat parties. Will himself was at least 30, if not older. There was likely a 10 to 15 year difference between the two.

She was the sort of prize a man liked if he was trying to forget his age. Hannibal was bitter Will was such a man; the kind to not to care if his date was inexperienced and droll, as long as she was youthful and looked like she belonged on the cover of Good Housekeeping.

“Nice to meet you, Abigail,” Alana said.

“A very lovely date, it is an exceptional pleasure to meet you both,” Hannibal said, so exaggeratedly polite that Alana rested a hand on his back, whether to comfort him or warn him he couldn’t say. Alana knew him enough to know that his usual politeness and charm only became uncomfortably excessive when he was angry.

“Not—she’s my daughter,” Will mumbled.

Oh, Hannibal had read this very wrong.

“My apologies,” Hannibal said. Will nodded yet still didn’t meet Hannibal’s gaze, instead talking to the vicinity of Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal resisted the urge to cup Will’s chin in his hand and gently tilt, until Will had nowhere to look but into his eyes.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter, Will,” Alana said. The words were gentle and understanding, but there was the unspoken accusation just the same. I was your therapist, how could you not have told me?

“Because I didn’t, not until recently,” Will said. A pause. Alana said nothing. “Technically I’m her surrogate father.” The words were bitter, a forced admission he hadn’t wanted to make, but was compelled to by Alana’s silence.

“He’d adopt me, but legally I’m not an orphan,” Abigail said, a sincere smile stretching her face and easing the timid look from her eyes. “But I’m glad he’s my new father.”

“She’s the one who adopted me really,” Will said, self-consciously sipping at a drink in his hand.

“The family we choose often proves to be stronger than a family related merely by blood,” Hannibal said.

“And it makes for a happier family too,” Abigail said. “My real father wasn’t a nice man; I was relieved when he left.”

“Abigail!” Will said.

“She’s allowed to dislike a man who was unkind, father or not,” Hannibal said. “I’d imagine you pray for his continued absence.”

“It doesn’t matter if he does come back. I’m her father now, not him.”

How delightfully defensive Will sounded. As long as the biological father was alive, there was always the threat he could return and shatter Will’s family of two. There was, of course, a rather permanent way to make sure the biological father stayed gone. If he convinced Will to enter therapy, he could cultivate the same thought in Will’s mind.

“Will was one of the volunteers who brought food,” Alana said. “He’s a fisherman and a hunter. Cooked some of it with fresh game.”

“Impressive,” Hannibal said. “I too cooked for the gala, but I must confess I bought my meat at the butcher’s.”

A lie. He had hunted down a particularly rude and inept lawyer. He had also brought his own game to the table. A wilder game.

“Only some of it,” Will said. “The rest of the meat came from the store.”

“I’m sure you still far surpassed us all,” Hannibal said.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Alana said. “Hannibal is a famously good chef. He hosts the most extravagant dinner parties I’ve ever been to—candlelight atmosphere, six course meals—makes the dishes himself, well, with the help of a couple prep cooks. The two of you are both fantastic cooks.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m fantastic,” Will said, “just unique this far from the bayou.”

“Expanding our palettes?” Hannibal said.

“Enormously,” Will said. He licked his lips in a nervous gesture. Perhaps the attention of the conversation on himself made him nervous, and Hannibal’s eyes tracked the movement.

“I helped Will. Here, you should try it,” Abigail said, grabbing a small plate of bacon-wrapped loin on rice, and passing it to Alana with a proud gleam in her eye. Alana cut off a chunk with a fork and took a bite. She carefully chewed the sample, savoring it as if it were a bite of blackberry crumble.

“Incredible,” Alana said, tapping the fork with approval in a rapid clang against the plate. She passed the plate to Hannibal. “Mmm, take a bite.”

Hannibal could smell the bacon-wrapped loin now that it was this close. It smelled like... human meat?

Will’s eyes were no longer on Hannibal’s shoulder, but instead he stared intently at the plate and then his eyes darted up to Hannibal’s mouth, tensed and anticipating Hannibal’s first taste. Hannibal waited until Will finally looked up and met Hannibal’s gaze. Fear and defiance swam in the waters of Will’s eyes.

Could Hannibal dare to hope Will not only had a beautiful mind and body, but had the same appetite for human flesh?

Hannibal slowly brought a forkful to his mouth, determined to relish this moment, fearful that the taste would prove his hope wrong. The flavor burst on his tongue, deep and rich, and every yearning inside Hannibal leaped for joy.

Abigail’s father had already met his demise, and now Hannibal was eating him.

Hannibal chewed reverently. A more perfect moment could not be orchestrated. Not in any opera or play or song. He was Actaeon gazing upon the beauty of Diana.

“Hannibal?” Alana said.

He would gladly meet his own death just to experience this moment again.

“Unparalleled,” Hannibal said, feeling like he just saw the sun rise for the first time. “I have never met a more excellent cook.”

Will watched Hannibal. The man looked like he was having a religious experience over the food, and there were even tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. Garret Jacob Hobbs must taste really nice.

Will cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Every type of meat has a particular flavor,” Hannibal said. “I find if I concentrate, I can pinpoint the animal from which it came.”

Shit. Abigail looked over at Will, forehead crinkled in worry lines.

It was fine, Will told himself, just think of an animal Dr. Lecter hasn’t eaten before. Alligator? No, too common. Goat? Also common. Peacock? Dr. Lecter looked like the type of pretentious bastard to have actually eaten peacock.

“This pig had quite the unusual diet, better than most,” Hannibal said. “It changes the taste of the meat.”

Will breathed a sigh of relief. At least one uncomfortable question avoided.

“Commercially raised pigs are fed rendered pork,” Abigail said. “He probably just ate other pigs.”

Will shot her a sharp look. Now wasn’t the time to accidentally leave clues in front of Alana Bloom, who was a FBI consultant, for the sake of a witty joke. Even if cannibalizing a cannibal was cleverly ironic.

“I would say the bacon is a shoulder cut instead of a side cut,” Hannibal said. “The loin and bacon came from the same pig. And that’s liver and bits of heart mixed in with the dirty rice.”

“That is impressive,” Will said slowly. Dr. Lecter was right. He had gotten the cut of the meat right but the type of meat wrong? Then again, who would guess they were eating people?

“You know, despite Alana’s best attempts to conceal it, I’ve surmised she likely referred you to me, for therapy,” Hannibal said.

Will noticed Alana had her hand resting on Hannibal’s back, a gesture that clearly said she was sleeping with the oh-so-great Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Will swallowed the bitter feeling.

He could hardly blame her. Hannibal was charming; Will was antisocial and rude. Hannibal was well-educated, affluent, well-liked; Will grew up in ramshackle apartments near the boatyards and to this day barely scraped by a living. Hannibal exuded charm and self-control; Will woke up this morning bathed in sweat from a nightmare.

Also, Will just fed her people.

“I’m avoiding therapy,” Will said. There wasn’t enough therapy in the world for how screwed up his life was.

“I understand the reluctance. I’m sure many psychiatrists have expressed undue interest in your empathy disorder,” Hannibal said. “But I assure you, Will, I’m far more interested in the benefits I could bring to your relationship with Abigail. She needs you as a father figure. It is an enormous responsibility.”

Will glanced at Abigail. She did need him.

“Here’s my number, if you wish to make an appointment,” Hannibal said, perhaps sensing Will was beginning to cave. “Call me at any time. My only plan is to be redecorating my kitchen over the next few days.”

After Dr. Bloom and Dr. Lecter said their farewells and began to leave, Abigail pulled Will aside, gripping his tux sleeve in her hand.

“Do you think he knows?” Abigail whispered.

“To do so, he’d have to be at least a little familiar with the taste of long pig. I’d say we’re safe,” he said as he watched Dr. Lecter’s retreating back. The man had not a hair out of place. Will bet he owned that tux, probably owned several of them. Will tugged self-consciously at the hem of his own rented tux jacket.

“I sensed some sort of tension between you and Dr. Bloom,” Abigail said.

“Yeah,” Will said with a short laugh, “because she was my therapist. And I kissed her.”

“And?”

“And she said she couldn’t get involved with a patient, current or previous patient. Unethical. And since she couldn’t be what I needed, she would give me a referral to a new psychiatrist. Recommended Dr. Lecter, in fact.”

“Never hurts to try again.”

Will snorted.

“She’s sleeping with Lecter,” Will said, “And I guarantee you he’s not here as a volunteer. He actually paid for a table here. Could probably fund this entire fundraiser himself.”

Abigail raised an eyebrow at him. Yeah, ok, money isn’t everything.

“He’s charming, distinguished, very handsome,” Will said.

“I thought maybe you were jealous of Dr. Lecter,” Abigail said, “but it sounds like you’re jealous of Dr. Bloom.”

“I’m not jealous of Dr. Bloom.”

He let his mind see the world from Alana Bloom’s perspective. He saw Hannibal from Alana’s perspective. Alana and Hannibal sitting close together for an intimate dinner, home cooked meal between them, and Hannibal’s smile visible in the flickering candlelight. The figure the man cut in his well-tailored tux. Sincerity and intelligence in his eyes.

“Ok, maybe you’re right; who wouldn’t be jealous?” Will said. “She has a successful career, everybody loves her. She has a partner who’s attentive and romantic, and a damn sight better than the rest of us will ever get. Fine, I’m jealous. I wish I were Alana Bloom. I wish I had a someone like her Dr. Lecter. I’d also be saner if I were Dr. Bloom.”

“You going to schedule a session with him?”

“Whatever he’s charging, I’m not going to be able to afford it. I fix boat engines, and I’m rude enough to scare away customers.”

“You’re good at what you do. You’d think rudeness wouldn’t scare people off so easily.”

“Yes, well, people care more about their own sense of importance than the workmanship on a boat engine,” Will said. “And when you’re rude to someone, you mess with that feeling of importance.”

Will would stop if he knew how. Trying to navigate the intricacies of small talk was like trying to make eye contact with someone. He would try, but inevitably fail, some unknown barrier in the way. It was uncomfortable, and he resented whatever was so different about him that he couldn’t make any friends that hadn’t helped him dispose of a dead body.

“It’s ok, Winston can be your therapist. I can translate for him. ‘So Will, tell me, how does feeding brains, toes, and ground bones to your dogs make you feel?’”

“Like I’m already in a prison cell,” Will said humorlessly.

“They won’t find anything, even if they get a warrant,” Abigail said, unconcerned. “We have the gala attendees and our dogs to thank for that.”

“Bon appétit then,” Will said, and raised his drink in a toast to the very dead Garret Jacob Hobbs.

Wolf Trap, Virginia
Graham Residence

“It’s none of our concern,” Will said. Abigail held out her tablet, but Will didn’t take it. He avoided looking at the screen. He didn’t want to see the photo of the burned husk that was once a 13 year old boy.

Freddie Lounds was a parasite. What sort of monster profited off publishing these horrifying photos, instead of leaving the dead to rest?

“Whoever they are,” Abigail said, “they’re killing children.”

“Let the police deal with it,” Will said. Abigail scoffed as she flopped down in a lounge chair next to the hand-built shelf crammed with assorted half-empty liquor bottles; Will had taken to a small amount of drinking just to fall asleep at night. Buster padded over to her, and she scritched the Jack Russell on the head, fingers moving at an agitated pace.

“Fine, so I do my best to figure out who it is,” Will said. “I give the FBI an anonymous tip. It’s their job to deal with people like these.”

“Didn’t work when you told them about my father.”

“I didn’t have evidence; they had no probable cause for a warrant. Your father covered his tracks. There likely was no evidence, save for you.”

Abigail lightly touched her throat, where hidden beneath her scarf was a jagged scar.

“If I told them, they would have known I was helping him,” Abigail said. She scooped up Buster to sit on her lap, and he attempted to lick her face. She put a hand to her scarf to keep him from dislodging it, self-conscious even in the privacy of their home.

There was a polite knock at the front door.

“You don’t usually get company,” Abigail said, and Buster leapt from her lap to join the pack as they scrambled for the front door. Will sighed. His dogs enjoyed the thought of unexpected company a lot more than than Will did.

“Try never,” Will said. “Shotgun’s under the bed. Sit right there, you’ll be close enough to grab it if you need to.”

Will slowly opened the front door. Hannibal Lecter stood there.

Lecter was wearing a three-piece suit, of course he fucking was. Will had on an old flannel shirt covered in three layers of dog hair, with a rip on the cuff from when he was fiddling in the gear case of the latest Merc. He’s pretty sure he has a grease stain on his shoes.

“Dr. Lecter,” Will said, “this is a surprise.”

“Please Will, call me Hannibal,” Dr. Lecter said. “May I come in?”

Will whistled for the dogs to stay put as he opened the door wider. He’s going to get dog hair all over a suit that costs more than what I earn in a month, Will thought.

“Is this… is this about therapy?” Will said. He watched Hannibal wade into the waiting mass of dogs. Will pictured his home as Hannibal would see it. The dog beds scattered in front of built-in bookshelves cluttered with unread books and boxes of unfiled papers. The half-assembled boat motor propped against a chair that hasn’t been in style since the 80s. Will’s fucking bed, that doesn’t even have a box-spring under the mattress, parked in the middle of the living room.

“Uh, there’s only one open bedroom upstairs, too much boat and fishing equipment. Abigail gets the bedroom,” Will said, answering a question Dr. Lecter never asked. If he was here to try to convince Will to schedule therapy sessions, he now knew why Will hadn’t.

“I’m here because I’m hosting a dinner party next week,” Hannibal said, reaching out to pat Max, Will’s border collie, on the head. Max immediately thumped his tail against the floor. “I was hoping you could attend, and your daughter of course.”

“Thank you, but it sounds sociable. I try to avoid being sociable,” Will said. “I’m not very good at it.” Abigail made a sound like she was dying.

“What?” Will said.

“His dinner parties made the Best of Baltimore list. Twice,” Abigail said.

“Some say an invitation is considered enviable,” Hannibal said. “Would you really wish to deprive your daughter of the chance? The both of you would greatly improve the company.”

“Well, in that case,” Will said, not meaning it at all. But he already knew he’d accept; it'd be a chance for Abigail to think about something other than corpses and the FBI and serial killers for a change. “Fine, we’ll go.”

Abigail laughed and kissed Will on the cheek. Will smiled despite himself and despite the embarrassment. He was used to the idea of a family being people who ignored and resented each other. Abigail constantly surprised him.

He could feel Hannibal’s eyes on him. Will wasn’t sure if the man judged him to be an ill-suited father. Abigail used to live in a suburban middle-class home. Now she lived with Will in the middle of nowhere in a farmhouse with threadbare carpets and dog dandruff.

“Until then,” Hannibal said softly.

Hannibal left Will’s house with Will’s acquiescence to the dinner party invite, Abigail’s admiration, Max’s devotion, and what little peace Will had left in his mind. Now that Will had seen Dr. Lecter in his house, he couldn’t unsee him.

An afterimage of Hannibal Lecter lingered by the bookcases. That ghost of Hannibal leaned against the brick fireplace casually reading Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It was one of those books Will had bought with the intention of reading, but he could never get past that damn first section, Inferno.

Poetry spoke in a way that unsettled Will. It was too much imagery for an imagination as vivid as his, he couldn’t not see the portrait the poem painted. Inferno was worse than most. He always stalled on the stanza when the tormented Francesca said about her lover: “Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving, seized me so strongly with his charm that, as you see, it has not left me yet. Love brought us to one death.”

If he closed his eyes, he could imagine the beautiful Francesca and the man she had been doomed to love suspended above the ground in an eternal windstorm in Hell, swept away from each other’s arms by the punishing winds just as love metaphorically swept them away from reason and into adultery. The two of them would forever be haunted by memories of the love they had felt that they would never experience again, a never fulfilled longing in their souls for each other.

Will wondered if Hannibal Lecter was the kind of man to feel sympathy for Francesca and her fate. Hardly likely. Men of his caliber rarely sympathized with the impulsive and imperfect.

“You know, a dinner party, that’s a lot of food,” Abigail said, interrupting Will’s wandering thoughts. “Dr. Lecter might need some extra meat.”

She clearly wasn’t done with their previous conversation.

“No, no. It’s bad enough, me serving your father up as some sort of tasty dish to get rid of the evidence,” Will said. “But to go in with the intention of killing someone. I didn’t mean to kill your father, his murder was an accident—”

“It’s not murder, we honored every part of him.”

“—we can't just do this, Abigail.”

“What, you’d rather let those kids die? Like I would have died?” Abigail said.

She stormed out of the living room and out the front door, letting it slam shut. Her temper’s been showing lately. It might not be a bad sign. At least she no longer lists around the house pale and frightened, half-expecting to find her father waiting for her around every corner.

Will turned around to see the imaginary Dr. Lecter standing there watching the exchange.

“Well, have anything helpful to say?” Will said to the hallucination.

“This is important to her, for one reason or another,” the ghost of Hannibal Lecter said. “I would say she’s very determined.”

“I’d be sending her to the wolves. FBI, serial killers—and they’d all want a piece of us.”

“She’ll likely do this with or without you. As her father, are you really going to let her face the wolves alone?”

Dammit.

Baltimore, Maryland
Dr. Lecter’s Dinner Party

“The wine I promised,” Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier said as she held out a bottle for Hannibal to take. “A Pinot Noir from the Clos de la Maréchale. Should go well with the entrée.”

“You sure you won’t stay for the dinner party?” Hannibal said as he passed the wine bottle to one of the prep cooks.

“I’m your psychiatrist, Hannibal, not your friend,” Bedelia said. “You’ve made changes since the last time I was here; you redecorated the kitchen.”

“The essentials are all still the same, not a single appliance or counter changed.”

“It reminds me now of my father’s cabin in the Saint Lawrence Valley from when I was a little girl. Whatever you had in mind when you redecorated, it wasn’t your own taste. Every room in this house is specifically designed with others’ perceptions in mind: intimidation, admiration, and contemplation. But not the kitchen, it had always been strictly for your pleasure alone, and now that’s changed.”

“On the contrary, everything in this room is designed specifically for my pleasure,” Hannibal said as he sprinkled parmesan and olive oil on a platter of thinly sliced carpaccio “beef.”

“There are fishing lures on a rustic wood shelf where once there was a Jean-Honoré Fragonard painting.”

Well, he wanted Will to be comfortable here. It took hours to plan and prepare their kind of meals.

“The kitchen is where the fish is cooked, what better place to keep what lures the fish to my dinner table?” Hannibal said.

“The candles and mirror are a romantic touch. Hannibal, have you met someone?”

“Perceptive as always. Yes, I met a man. I invited him to the dinner tonight, in fact.”

“Is that the explanation for the second armchair? I had wondered if you were thinking of entertaining in the kitchen now.”

“The kitchen is for family, not guests.”

Hannibal planned many of his meals sitting in that original armchair. An index card with a recipe in one hand and a business card in the other, as he imagined step by step how he would procure his main ingredient. It was fitting there should be two armchairs now.

Does Will sit in his own kitchen, imagining pools of blood and cracked bone and the smell of cooking flesh? Does he compose his masterpiece in the theatre of his mind, a rousing rehearsal before opening night?

The chime of the doorbell interrupted his thoughts. He had not expected another guest so early before the dinner party.

“Alana, this is a surprise. Come in,” Hannibal said when he saw who was at the door. He had hoped, absurdly, when he heard the doorbell that it might be Will arriving early, perhaps dragged here by the sheer force of Abigail’s enthusiasm.

“I thought you might want some help setting up tonight.”

“If you insist,” Hannibal said as two attendants carried trays of hors d'oeuvres while a prep cook hurried towards the kitchen with an empty serving platter. He knew she was aware he always hired more than enough help for his dinner parties.

“Alright, I admit it, I’m actually here to talk,” Alana said. “It’s been a couple weeks since I last heard from you, not since the gala, when you didn’t invite me for a drink afterwards. It’s fine if it’s over, Hannibal, I’m a big girl. I just want the courtesy of being told.”

“I consider you a good friend and a colleague. I will always consider you such.”

“So it is over then. Well, it was an affair and affairs like this tend to end,” Alana said. She was hurt he was sure, but too proud to show it.

The look on her face reminded him of the painting of Catherine de' Medici that used to sorrowfully stare at him from his aunt’s foyer and now hung in his study over the fireplace. The Catherine in the painting was proud yet melancholy, weighted down by the deeds she had done to ensure the survival of her heirs. A mother will do anything for her children, his aunt used to say. Never underestimate it.

Will had done what he needed to in order to keep Abigail safe. Hannibal wondered what would Abigail still need, what still drove her decisions and desires, and how would those needs might influence Will as her father.

“Well, now that I’ve invaded your home right before your dinner party, is there a way I can actually help?”

“You are not the only guest to arrive early, and I am too busy to be a proper host at the moment. Perhaps you would entertain her for me?”

Alana nodded, likely glad at the prospect of no longer being in the same room as Hannibal, and he ushered her up the stairs to the study. The other guest was leaning against the desk as she stared vacantly at the flickering flames in the fireplace. The guest wore her diamonds and lipstick like armor, a buffer between her and the world that had hurt her. She rested a hand on her stomach, face in a grimace.

“Margot, a dear friend of mine has arrived. May I have the pleasure of introducing Alana Bloom?” Hannibal said.

Margot turned towards them. It took a few moments, but the distant stare and unhappy turn of Margot’s mouth began to melt from her face. There was still sadness at the corner of her eyes, but she smiled, something she hadn’t done since the surgery.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Margot said. Alana absently ran her fingers through her own hair, tucking it behind one ear.

Interesting. He knew that tell.

“Care to join me by the fire? Could use the company,” Margot said.

These two certainly didn’t need him around.

As he walked back to the kitchen to say goodbye to Bedelia, he stopped by the dining table and switched the place cards for Miss Verger and another guest. He suspected Margot would benefit from a seat across from Dr. Alana Bloom.

“Two families, states apart and little in common,” Abigail said, as Will drove them up the street towards Dr. Lecter’s house. “Maybe there isn’t a pattern.”

Abigail wore a white and black homecoming dress repurposed for the dinner party. She would look like the old Abigail, the one who went to Prom and high school football games, if it weren’t for her silk scarf. The faint reflections of the stately mansions guarding the street loomed on the passenger side window behind the profile of her face.

“No, there’s a pattern, otherwise they’d never had found the crime scene at the Frisks so quickly after the Turners. The FBI knows something about these families they’re not sharing with the press,” Will said. “I need more photos. I’m trying to reconstruct a family portrait out of instagram photos and fingerpaint drawings on the fridge.

“TattleCrime.com publishes photos for shock value, not photos with the mundane details. I need to know what these people looked like at the time of death. What position their bodies were in, the pattern of arterial spray on the wall, what emotion is still etched in the emptiness of their eyes.”

“Think we could pay Freddie Lounds for the rest of the photos? The ones she didn’t post on TattleCrime?”

“No one would accuse Freddie of journalistic integrity. She’d sell us more than photos if we asked. I doubt it will help us find what we’re looking for.”

“If we had found the killer already, we could have helped with the dinner party,” Abigail said. “I could have made them into a chicken salad, or maybe a pot pie. Don’t suppose he’d let us help with the next one?”

“You know, you were supposed to stop worrying about this for tonight. Please Abigail, enjoy yourself. Take in the exotic food, the glittering dresses, the ceaseless grating chatter. In the morning, we’ll go back to tracking our killer, refreshed and ready to scour the dregs of TattleCrime some more.”

“Like you’ll be enjoying yourself,” Abigail said with an amused smile. “You’d rather face a serial killer than a dinner party.”

“You’re not wrong,” Will said, parking his 10-year old station wagon behind a BMW convertible.

The man exiting the convertible wore his black suit with resigned formality, like a nameless businessman still toiling away at the end of a long work day. Despite the obvious quality of the suit, the man had no similarities with their esteemed dinner host. The suit was so bland it faded into obscurity against the background of dramatic sculpted houses, and the white peppered at his temples and throughout his neatly trimmed beard held no distinguished quality. He regarded Will’s car with a puzzled look.

Will ignored the man’s gaze. If the man considered the car a travesty, it would only get worse when he saw the grey sports jacket and blue button-down Will wore. Will was comfortable in chest waders or sweaters, not formal wear.

He didn’t feel any less out of place inside Dr. Lecter’s house. The house was a brick Colonial monstrosity surrounded by carefully maintained landscaping. No wild irises or ivy here, only ornamental hedges on a vibrantly green yard. There was an actual attendant at the door, dressed like a waiter at an overpriced restaurant, and Hannibal was there to personally greet each guest.

“Will, Abigail, I’m pleased to see you both. Come in, please.”

“Great to see you, Dr. Lecter,” Abigail said.

“Thanks for the invite,” Will lied.

As Hannibal helped Abigail out of her coat, the attendant held his hand out towards Will with an expectant look.

“Uh…” Will said.

“Your coat, sir,” the attendant said.

Oh. Before Will could take his off, he felt Hannibal step behind him and gently grab and pull the shoulders back to help Will remove it. He could feel Hannibal’s warm exhale against his neck.

“Uh, thank you, I’ll just—” Will said, as Hannibal handed it to the attendant. Abigail watched with raised eyebrows. Will wondered if she was embarrassed he hadn’t known what to do with his coat.

“And Dr. Sutcliffe, always glad to see an old colleague,” Hannibal greeted the man who had arrived in the convertible.

“Well, I would hardly miss it,” Dr. Sutcliffe said.

As they made their way further into the house, Sutcliffe said to Will, “You picked the right party to come to. Hannibal’s dinners are famous, more like a feast than a meal. He’s always been prone to extravagance.”

Will soon realized the food was not the only feast for tonight. For one, the room the guests were ushered into was a buffet of textures. Thick woven grey curtains hung against classic damask wallpaper with plush green armchairs standing on a polished marble floor. Throw pillows with goddamn zebra stripes were on a couch squatted in front of a crackling fireplace. Natural textures—flowers arranged in vases and carved wood furniture—rested on every flat surface of the room.

Secondly, the gossip was a banquet for the vultures.

“It’s a shame Hannibal doesn’t host more parties, he has exquisite taste, not just the food,” a woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Komeda said. Her straight black hair hung to her chin in a severe manner. She had snagged Will before he could make his escape to the far side of the room, where he had planned to linger next to the harpsichord and out of reach of conversation. “Best decor you’ll ever see. Better than my mother; she never learned how to accentuate a room. She once put rose-patterned armchairs next to paisley curtains. There’s a reason I don’t host any parties where my mother has decorated.”

“Hannibal does pride himself on his refined palette,” Dr. Sutcliffe said. He had not escaped Mrs. Komeda’s clutches either. He, unlike Will, had at least managed to snap up a glass of wine to fortify against Mrs. Komeda’s onslaught.

Mrs. Komeda turned to Will as if she expected him to have some opinion on the matter.

“Uh, it’s a very nice living room,” Will said.

“It’s a parlor,” Mrs. Komeda said.

Will wondered where Abigail was and if she would rescue him. He caught Abigail’s eye across the room.

“I feel as if there was a ‘but’ hidden somewhere in that sentence,” Dr. Sutcliffe said to Will. “You don’t meet many people with a ‘but’ when discussing Dr. Lecter’s exquisite tastes.”

“I guess zebra striped pillows are a little beyond me,” Will said. Dr. Sutcliffe tried to stifle an amused smile by clearing his throat and looking at the ground.

“Are they?” Mrs. Komeda said stiffly, as if he had just personally insulted her and her precious sense of decor, which put an end to that conversation. Unfortunately for him, Abigail had overheard.

“Can you try not to be rude,” Abigail said.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” Will said. He had finally managed to make his way next to the harpsichord and now did his very best to blend into the curtains behind him. “She shouldn’t have asked my opinion on the room.”

“If anyone asks, just say the room is lovely. Standard answer for all questions tonight. The food is lovely, the guests are lovely—“

“Mrs. Komeda’s conversations are lovely. Yes, I get it. Any actual benefits for attending tonight?”

“Have you tried this?” Abigail said holding up a cucumber slice with some sort of pale pink spread on top.

“What is it?”

“Some kind of mousse. Thought it was salmon, but tastes closer to chicken, I think.”

“It has to be tastier than the conversation.” It was. Apparently there were very good reasons to attend Hannibal’s dinner parties.

Will’s attempt to weasel his way out of social interactions backfired spectacularly when he snuck his way across the room to sample a few more of the hors d'oeuvres. Dr. Lecter spotted him, and noting a guest without a conversation partner, felt the need to play host and talk to him. Not that he minded conversing with Hannibal. Hannibal was at least interesting, and seemed to understand Will’s protectiveness of Abigail. What he minded was that wherever Dr. Lecter went, the other guests followed, eager to join the conversation.

“A ricotta and prosciutto crostini, with peaches,” Hannibal said as he nodded at the grilled bread piled with decadent toppings that Will nibbled on.

“Delicious,” Will mumbled before remembering it wasn’t polite to talk with a full mouth. He stuffed the last bite of the crostini in his mouth to soothe his nerves, and got a smear of the ricotta on his hand.

“Prosciutto is traditionally made by hand,” Hannibal said. “The process itself takes two years.”

Two years? Who takes two years to make an appetizer?

“You begin in winter, with the hind quarters. You salt it, hang it to dry, and occasionally grease it over a crucial 18 months. The ham will begin to leave a sweet smell suspended in the air. An unmistakable perfume.”

Hannibal’s head dipped down to the side as he subtly inhaled, as if smelling the air. Perhaps he could smell the prosciutto even now.

Will nodded as he absently sucked the ricotta off his finger. He didn’t realize what he’d done until Hannibal’s head lifted and his gaze sharpened on him, lingering on his finger in his mouth.

Right, should have used a napkin or something. Will was too used to his own habit of napkin rationing from years of fishing and camping. He saved the napkins for the really dirty jobs, like wiping his hands while cleaning fish or getting oil off his hands after greasing the boat engine pistons, not for crumbs and bits of spread.

“Dr. Lecter,” a new voice said, and the interruption seemed to snap Hannibal back from wherever his attention had wandered. The newcomer was a short man with a wide smile and short brown hair side-combed into the universal haircut that men the world over favored.

“Dr. Chilton, may I introduce Will Graham?”

“Not the Will Graham? The one with the empathy, and the extra mirror neurons?” Dr. Chilton didn’t wait for Will to respond. “Your mind is of great interest to the psychiatric world, if I may say so, Mr. Graham. Especially to a man such as myself, considering my reputation and profession.”

“What profession is that?”

“Oh, I’m the hospital administrator, at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”

“Are you saying I’m criminally insane?” Will said slowly.

“Goodness, no,” Chilton said with a chuckle, then added conspiratorially as if it was a big joke, “though I’d watch which psychiatrists you interview with, some might argue for insane.”

No, just criminal, Will thought.

“They don’t understand how a mind like yours works. I would never do that,” Dr. Chilton continued. “Perhaps you’d like to interview with me some—“

“Dr. Chilton, now is not the time for such topics,” Hannibal said, his eyes on Will not Dr. Chilton. It seemed at least one of the doctors could recognize the warning signs of an impending angry explosion. “This is a time of leisure, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, you’re right, of course.”

“Will, good to see you again,” Alana Bloom said, joining the conversation with another dark-haired woman in tow. “And if you don’t mind the interruption, Hannibal, I wanted to thank you for introducing Margot to me.”

“It appears Dr. Bloom and I have a lot in common,” Margot said.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind being interviewed by the lovely Dr. Bloom,” Dr. Chilton stage-whispered to Will loud enough for everyone to hear. “Everybody else seems to want to.”

“I don’t do interviews,” Will said to Alana to break the tension. “But if I did, I promise not to kiss you again.” That really wasn’t the way to do it. Hannibal’s mouth flattened in an unamused look as he looked between Alana and Will. Great going, Will, tell the host you once kissed his girlfriend.

“Well, as long as you promise,” Alana said, and it sounded like she was flirting with him.

Now Margot looked as unamused as Hannibal. Did everyone here want Alana? How strange it must be to be the object of desire for the entire room. Will contented himself with scrounging for scraps of affection. It’d been over five years since his last date.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. Jack Crawford, head of the the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI,” a man introduced himself to Will as yet more people joined the conversation. “How did you and Dr. Lecter meet?”

“Through a mutual acquaintance, for which I am very grateful,” Hannibal said. Which was better than the only answer Will could think of, which was ‘he liked the people I cooked him.’

“How do you know Dr. Lecter?” Will said. He was being rude again, he knew it. But he wanted to know, and didn’t know how else to ask.

“Oh, we work together on occasion,” Jack said, “Dr. Chilton, Dr. Boom, Dr. Lecter, me. You know it’s going to be bad if all four of us are called in.”

“Or in this case, good,” Dr. Chilton said. “We’ve caught the Chesapeake Ripper. Or rather, we caught him two years ago. He’s just confessed.”

“Abel Gideon may not know what he’s talking about,” Dr. Bloom said.

“He knows the crimes, inside and out, even what wasn’t released to the press,” Dr Chilton said. “He’s playing you, Dr. Bloom. He’s pretending he doesn’t know who he is.”

“I’m sure we’ll know whether or not he’s the Ripper soon enough,” Hannibal said.

“You’ve heard of the Chesapeake Ripper, I assume?” Dr. Chilton said to Will.

“Yes, I’ve—wait, are all of you FBI?” Shit, shit, shit. Why did he come to this dinner party?

“I’m the only FBI here. The good doctors here consult on cases from time to time,” Agent Crawford said.

Perfect. Will accepted a dinner invite from a psychiatrist who helps catch serial killers. Will did his best to look like he hadn’t killed a guy just a couple weeks ago.

“Religious nuts who carve angel wings out of the skin of people’s backs and mushroom gardens grown out of human body parts, always a good time,” Dr. Chilton said. “I’m beginning to spend all my time either staring at the steel cages in the hospital or at the charcoal-painted hallways of the BAU. I’m starting to get sick of the color gray.”

An attendant whispered in Hannibal’s ear.

“May I have everyone's attention,” Hannibal said to the group. “I am pleased to inform you, dinner is ready to be served.”

At least Will was spared the indignity of deciding who was the lesser evil to sit by. There were place cards with names. Will sat at his designated spot between Alana and Abigail, and within conversation distance of Hannibal, a safe port in the storm. Unfortunately Dr. Sutcliffe and Mrs. Komeda were seated opposite him.

The first half of dinner went better than he had feared. Abigail and Hannibal had a lively conversation about Hannibal’s memories of Italy, while Mrs. Komeda interjected anecdotes from her own trips to Europe. Sutcliffe and Chilton and Crawford debated the implications of case studies on the brain scans of psychopaths. Will happily kept silent.

“Undeveloped amygdala and an increased volume of striatum, you can look on a brain scan and know someone's a psychopath,” Agent Crawford said.

“That particular brain development results in no fear conditioning and an overdeveloped rewards system in the brain. Recipe for psychopathy,” Dr. Chilton said. “At least psychopaths never have to worry about depression, or night dreads.”

“If only we all were psychopaths,” Dr. Sutcliffe said.

Margot and Alana ignored them and instead discussed poetry.

“‘Let me confess that we two must be twain, although our undivided loves are one.’ Reality has a tendency to undermine unrealistic expectations, like pruning shriveled blooms from a flower,” Margot said.

“Are your hopes unrealistic? Or is that just what you’ve been told by your brother? ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment,’” Alana said.

“Touché. If only it were that simple. You know, I’ll always find it baffling there are scholars who insist Shakespeare’s sonnets are platonic.”

“I always mention a man’s erect cock in an entirely platonic manner.”

Will choked on the mouthful of soup he was sipping.

It was when the stuffed onions were served as the fourth course that it all went to shit. As soon as the attendant placed the plate in front of Will, his heart sunk. Why had he not prepared for this?

He couldn’t tell if there were onions in the stuffing. He could see cheese, spinach, meat. Could he risk taking a bite?

He glanced at Abigail as she ate a mouthful. He couldn’t see any onion pieces on her spoon. He could dig through the stuffing with the spoon and see if there were any, and separate out the offending vegetable. Or he could not eat it.

Mrs. Komeda was staring at him. He couldn’t do it, could he? It would be bad manners, even he knew that.

“Everything alright?” Abigail whispered to him. “You’re not eating.”

“Fine,” Will whispered back. “Are there onions in the filling?”

“Yes. Do you not like onions?” Abigail whispered. “You use them all the time when cooking.”

“I use onion powder,” Will whispered, “and I like the taste of onions just fine.”

Right, he could just try to get a spoonful that didn’t have onion in it. Not eat much of it, claim he was getting full. He could do this. He carefully got a spoonful that he prayed didn’t have any, and took a bite.

Crunch.

Wet and firm and crunch and squish. There was pain in his jaw, in his teeth, in his throat. No, pain was the wrong word. It was the same discomfort his ears felt when they heard wet squeaking shoes on linoleum. The kind of sound that’s worse than pain. It made you want to rip your ears off, made you want to scream.

The scrape of silverware against plates deafened him. Skeee… tap... tap… clathunk. The light in the dining room burned his eyes, and made him dizzy. The collar of the dinner jacket he wore scraped at his skin with every minute movement.

“—ill?

“Will?”

Shit, he had spit the piece of onion back on the plate. He had done it without thinking, the same jumpy reflex as swatting a spider off himself.

“Dad?” Abigail said. “Are you—went blank, like you—somewhere else.”

“What?” Will said.

“Hannibal, you’re torturing your patient,” Dr. Sutcliffe said with a nod towards Will.

“Will, are—ight?” Hannibal said.

“What?” Will repeated.

“SPD,” Dr. Sutcliffe diagnosed. “You have—where he can go?”

“Will,” Hannibal said, crouching down next to Will who was still seated at the table. “Can you hear me? Do you need a quiet room?”

“Yes, I… I need quiet, less distractions,” Will said. Hannibal gently guided him from the room, careful not to touch him. Will was grateful. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much. He wished he could escape his brain.

“It was delicious, it’s not that,” Will said, trying to put the thoughts in his head back in order.

“I know, Will,” Hannibal said, “Sutcliffe said Sensory Processing Disorder. A texture in the food?”

“Onions,” Will said bitterly. “Cooked onions, cooked celery, and raw tomato. They’re wet but crunchy. It’s too conflicting for my brain. My mind gets overwhelmed, like a small panicking child lost in a crowd of strangers. And then I can’t filter out distractions anymore. Suddenly background noises, like rustling paper and tapping feet, are as distracting as the roar of a jet. Also happens when I use my empathy.”

“The inner lives of the masses can be invasive. Crowding your thoughts and lapping at the sanctity of your mind.”

“It’s not the masses that are the problem. Petty people with petty problems. It’s when I get too close to one mind. How do I know which of their thoughts are theirs and which are mine?”

“The same way a mother knows her child by scent alone. Do you want peace, Will?”

“I want the quiet of my own thoughts.”

“This is the study, it will be quiet here,” Hannibal said. “I can put out the fire if it’s too distracting.” Will glanced toward the lit fireplace.

“No, I’ll be fine if I close my eyes for a bit.”

“I have to wonder why you would choose not to tell me.”

“It has nothing to do with you. I use onion powder or small enough pieces that it doesn’t crunch when I cook. I thought I could fake it tonight. I didn’t want to be the weird one.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being weird. You’ll find I am as weird as you are, if not more. In case you didn’t notice, you would hardly have been the only one eating a special diet tonight. Margot’s still recovering from a surgery; it’s best if she only eats soft foods for now.”

“Sorry for interrupting the dinner party.”

“Never apologize, Will.”

Will closed his eyes, took in the silence and the darkness behind his eyelids. He needed to focus his attention. He could think about the crime scenes, and hoped it would help his mind concentrate again.

He had imagined the Turner crime scene and the Frisk crime scene over and over the past week. Imagined every possible scenario he could: the different precautions the killer could have taken, the possible sequence of the execution of the family members, possible words exchanged or not exchanged. But he knew he was missing something, there was an itch at the back of his brain.

The pendulum swung.

Will pictured a large living room covered in Christmas decorations, just like in the TattleCrime photos. There was an enormous Christmas tree lit with bright lights that sat in one corner, with garland and wreaths strung around the border of the room. Everything was store-bought, new, and matched. It looked like a living room you would find in a furniture magazine.

Mrs. Frisk was slumped on the couch with a bullet hole in her head, a counterpoint to the otherwise picture-perfect Christmas cheer. Mr. Frisk and the kids were collapsed on the floor amid a ruin of torn wrapping paper and opened presents. A small burned body was curled up in the fireplace.

The pendulum swung again.

Mrs. Frisk sat up on the couch, tears sliding down her face. Her family was dead all around her: her husband, her two kids, and her son, who had been kidnapped 10 months ago. The kidnapper had returned the son, only to kill all the family. Mrs. Frisk had been killed last.

Will held up the gun in his hand.

BANG!

A single gunshot, and Mrs. Frisk flopped backwards, blood spraying from her forehead as her body started to convulse. Will stared at her in bafflement. He hadn’t fired his gun.

He turned his head slowly to the side. Colin Frisk was no longer in the fireplace. He was standing beside Will, a recently fired gun in his hand. His skin was no longer blackened by fire and his untouched blonde hair tumbled over his eyes as he looked up at Will.

“You killed her?” Will said. “Why? Why would you—”

“I just wanted a family,” Colin said, voice small.

“You had a family.”

“The family you’re born into, they aren’t your real family. You understand, I know you do! Your dad isn’t your real family either.”

“My father tried his best. He wasn’t prepared for a child like me.”

“I chose a new family, like you,” Colin said as he grabbed Will’s open hand like a young child latches onto their parent.

“Your new family killed you.”

“I chose the wrong family. I can choose better next time.”

“You won’t get that chance, Colin,” Will said quietly to the young boy.

“No, but you will.”

Will opened his eyes with a shaky exhale, and he was back at Hannibal’s. The study was empty, Hannibal had left. Will took deep breaths and tried to steady his breathing as he looked around.

Unlike the cold, vast parlor downstairs, the study was warm and small, closing in around Will like a comfortable leather glove. Two plush armchairs lounged by a fireplace guarded by twin wood pilasters. Books and vases and antiques were stacked on orderly built-in bookshelves, and a chandelier with electric candles hovered high over the coffee table. A massive wood desk that swallowed up the empty space of the room sat across from the fireplace.

Will sat in one of the armchairs and rubbed his face with his hands. He needed to get a grip. The study door creaked open, and Will looked up to see Hannibal carrying in a tray piled with food.

“The other courses,” Hannibal said with a smile. “A salad, with asparagus and lotus root chips, and bread pudding with a pomegranate sauce. I also took the liberty of dicing the onion in the entreé into very small bits. Should be safe to eat now.”

“Thank you,” Will said. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“It was my pleasure. How are you feeling?”

“Better, less unstable.”

“I can brew a cup of valerian root tea,” Hannibal offered. “It has a mild sedative effect, though it can be bitter without the proper sweeteners. Hippocrates himself extolled the virtues of the plant as a medicinal. It will take about a half hour to steep—”

“No, no I’m fine. Go ahead and return to your guests.”

“As you wish. You can stay here as long as you need to, Will.”

“That might be the rest of the evening,” Will said with a bitter smile.

After Hannibal left the room, Will saw a flicker of flame out of the corner of his eye. He looked back and saw Colin Frisk standing by the desk. Colin was engulfed in a pillar of fire, flames licking at him but his skin remain unburned. He pointed at a small stack of folders on the desk.

Will opened the top folder. There were photos of a familiar living room and a familiar crime scene. Will flipped through the papers, studying the report on the Frisk murders. Shit, there were autopsy reports, the forensics results, fingerprint analysis… Hannibal was consulting on the case.

Curious, he opened the next folder too.

It opened to a photo of a woman splayed out, a stool under her back as her legs and arms dangled towards the ground. She was dead, her eyes missing and her body pierced by IV stands, rebars, and medical equipment. Organs were cut out of her like her killer took surgical trophies, but the death felt clinical and cold, not triumphant.

The case report was labeled, “The Chesapeake Ripper.”

There was another photo dated two years ago. It was a dead man laid out on a workbench, resting on the hard surface like Lazarus lying in his tomb. This corpse was also mutilated by the tools of his trade, but this death felt passionate. Several screwdrivers pierced the man’s abdomen, a pair of pliers pinched his upper thigh, and a saw gnawed at his knee. Whoever killed this man had slaughtered him like one would a pig.

“These are not the same killer,” Will whispered to himself.

There was a knock at the study door.

Will quickly shut the folders and stepped away from the desk, grabbing a letter opener from the desk absent mindedly so he’d have something to fiddle with. Dr. Sutcliffe walked into the room.

“Ah, glad to see the honored guest is doing better,” Dr. Sutcliffe said.

“Honored guest?” Will said.

“Yes, Hannibal’s been showing you off all evening. You didn’t notice?” Dr. Sutcliffe said as he sat down in one of the armchairs. “The host sits at the head of the table, and the guest of honor sits to the right of the host.”

“Abigail sat to the right of Hannibal.”

“Hannibal’s a traditionalist. Etiquette insists the host arrange the seating to alternate between male and female, so Hannibal does. As a male guest he can’t sit you next to himself, messes with the alternating pattern, so he put Abigail in the guest of honor seat by the host, thereby—”

“—honoring me. I didn’t realize formal dinners were so complicated.”

“Oh, formal dinners are always ridiculous that way. The real question is, why you? What makes you so special?”

“Special?”

“Hannibal can’t resist showing off his rare treats. Whether it's food, antiques, or a guest. The last guest of honor was a famous opera singer.”

“I’m afraid I’m only a rarity in the psychiatric circle. Too many mirror neurons in my brain. Sorry if that disappoints you.”

“Well, you don’t disappoint,” Dr. Sutcliffe said with a chuckle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hannibal outright ignore his dinner guests before. He’s a seasoned surgeon in the ER who doesn’t even blink when he sticks his hand in someone’s guts, but one episode from you at the table and he froze, and then didn’t return until after dinner. Do him some good to deal with something that didn’t go his way for once.”

Will has assumed Hannibal had left as soon as Will started reconstructing the crime scene. Had he stayed the entire time, waiting in silence while Will lost himself in a crime scene?

“You diagnosed me at the dinner table.”

“I did a medical case study on the possible causes of autism. I got to know the symptoms of every end of the spectrum. So yes, I noticed you sometimes lack central coherence, and don’t know how to use hedging or indirect questioning.”

“In other words, I sometimes take things too literally and I don’t know how to politely frame questions and requests. I’m aware.”

“I’m sure it’s frustrating, especially when you’re high-functioning. You recognize your difficulty in connecting to others, but your brain isn’t adapted to fixing the problem. One of my case studies did the exact thing you do: she had a tendency to touch objects related to whomever she wished to form a connection with, since she couldn’t with her words.”

Will guiltily looked at the letter opener he was turning over and over in his hands and placed the item back on Hannibal’s desk. Will heard a set of footsteps tapping up the stairs to the study.

“Glad you found some company.” It was Hannibal, no doubt checking on Will.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it,” Dr. Sutcliffe said, and it was just Will and Hannibal in the room.

“I had an excellent time chatting with Abigail tonight. But I was hoping to get to know you a little better. Perhaps you would agree to visit me again?”

“I don’t want an appointment—”

“No appointment,” Hannibal said, “just conversations. I wasn’t talking about therapy, Will.”

“Then what were you talking about?”

“Friendship.”

It was flattering, if odd. Not many people wanted to be friends with Will. Hannibal was friends with FBI agents, surgeons, socialites, even opera singers. He could understand why Hannibal would want to be his therapist, but his friend?

“Well, what’s a few conversations between friends?” Will said. Hannibal smiled.

“I believe some of the guests will be leaving shortly, if you wish to join me?”

He was right. While several of the guests still chatted in the parlor, a few had drifted near the coat room in the entryway. Hannibal went to escort the guests out while Will hovered in the entryway waiting for Abigail

“I apologize. For earlier,” Mrs. Komeda said to Will, startling him. “I didn’t realize you were… you know. He explained everything to me.”

“Hannibal told you,” Will said, heart sinking. Had Hannibal felt the need to explain Will’s behavior to his guests like Will was some misbehaving dog?

“Oh no, Hannibal never discusses his patients,” Mrs Komeda said. “Dr. Sutcliffe explained.”

“I’m not Hannibal’s patient.”

“Oh?”

“Margot and I are leaving, but it was so good to see you, Will,” Alana said, joining the group waiting outside the coat room. “What did you think of Dr. Lecter? I told you he’s a good psychiatrist when I recommended him.”

Will guessed saying ‘well, at least he's not Dr. Sutcliffe’ would not be a response Abigail would approve of.

“Dr. Lecter’s lovely,” Will said, remembering Abigail’s advice, before he realized that was a weird thing to say. Alana gave him an odd look. He took the opportunity to duck out the door as fast as possible as he said his goodbyes, Abigail at his side.

“That was fun,” Abigail said as she practically skipped down the front steps.

“Oh, it gets better,” Will said with a chuckle. “I found a way to get what we need.”

“What? How?”

“Hannibal’s consulting on the case, and he keeps the case files here. And he’s invited me back to his house. Looks like you’ll get to make your ‘chicken’ salad after all.”

“Best. Dinner. Party. Ever,” Abigail happily sighed.